Dearly Departed (The Year in Review 2021)

It is, perhaps, an odd synchronicity that 2021's best new pop cultural creations deal so frequently with loss and the absence of loved ones. 

On TV, a group of teens grapples with the death of their friend, while a perennially-delayed adaptation finally delivers on its vision of a deadly global virus. (Like I said, synchronicity.) Over on what, in any other year, would have been the big screen, a widow is haunted by her departed husband, while a theatre director reels from a devastating loss. Happily, pure escapism remains the case for video games, with space raccoons, space llamas, and other assorted oddballs dominating our consoles - though I'm not sure what it says that the funniest game of the year is also a divorce simulator.

FILM

THE NIGHT HOUSE is a masterclass in horror filmmaking: tense and atmospheric, with impeccably timed jump scares, interesting practical effects, and judicious use of CGI. It's also intelligent, brilliantly acted by Rebecca Hall as a grieving widow, and absolutely terrifying. I fear-cried during this movie, and it's been a long time since I did that. Like other great horror films before it, it operates at both a literal level - things that go bump in the night - and the metaphorical - what does it mean to be haunted by the loss of a loved one?

An hallucinogenic fever dream, THE GREEN KNIGHT resolutely refuses to abide by genre conventions, operating simultaneously as a medieval fantasy, fairy tale, psycho-sexual drama, and pagan horror (again, not unlike a certain horror film). Dev Patel stars in this revisionist take on the fabled Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, whose foolhardy bravery sets him on a quest to confront the title character. Eerie detours, from a magic mushroom trip to a visit from a ghostly princess, keep the film, and viewers, consistently off-balance.

A worthy addition to the "Movie-Named-After-Song-But-It's-Not-A-Musical" cinematic universe, DRIVE MY CAR is an intelligent, moving adaptation of the Haruki Murakami short story of the same name. Following a compelling and rather unexpected prologue, this three-hour film expands into an exploration of grief, love, despair, and hope, all situated within the framing device of a troupe of actors rehearsing Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." Highly literary, in the best possible sense. (And no, the song doesn't even make the soundtrack.)

TV

By the time the needle drops on Redbone's 1974 classic "Come and Get Your Love" in Episode 5 of RESERVATION DOGS, this Indigenous-centric series has long-since earned the right to play the favourites. Redbone was, of course, the first massively successful Indigenous-led rock band, and there's a decent argument that Dogs broke a similar cultural barrier on TV this year. The series follows a group of Indigenous teenagers reeling from the death of their friend, albeit with quick tongues and a keen sense of humour. Dark themes abound, but it's the goodheartedness, the laugh-out-loud jokes, and the lived-in atmosphere that make this dramedy one of the more interesting debuts in recent years.

Whoever said the woke aren't funny hasn't spent much time in RUTHERFORD FALLS, the heartwarming new comedy from the minds behind The Office and Superstore. Like Reservation Dogs, with which it shares an overlapping cast, Indigenous communities are front and centre, in this case the fictional Minishonka Nation which neighbours the title town. Unlike Dogs, this fits more in the classic sitcom mould, following a nerdy museum owner (Ed Helms) and his best friend, an aspiring Indigenous historian (Jana Schmieding) as they're drawn into a halfway-meaningful, halfway-absurd dispute over their communities' shared future. Politically astute jibes - the scene with the clueless white lawyer doubling down on a misappropriated term is one of the funniest of the year - are paired with an honest, forthright understanding of the legacy of colonialism and the challenges facing Indigenous communities.

I have yet to see a perfect Brian K. Vaughan adaptation, but Y: THE LAST MAN does an admirable job of translating the early issues of the award-winning comic book to the small screen. Unfortunately, its subject matter - a global virus kills every Y-chromosome-carrying organism on the planet, save one amateur escape artist and his pet monkey - is probably what doomed it to a single season. As it is, we're blessed with ten tightly-packed episodes featuring excellent performances from actors well-known (Diane Lane as the newly-installed, first-ever female president) and up-and-coming (Jess Salguiero, as the president's chief of staff, and Elliot Fletcher, as a trans man trying to navigate a female-dominated landscape, are standouts). Oh, and Ampersand the monkey is adorable. 

GAMING

The perennial underdog does it again, with the below-the-radar GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY arriving as the best and funniest superhero game in years. While relying a bit too much on its MCU inspiration, the great writing, interesting plot, and wonderful characters will have you laughing out loud throughout. Y may have TV's cutest monkey, but GotG has not one, not two, but three ridiculously entertaining animal sidekicks, including history's greatest Space Llama.

Gaming auteur Suda51 remains bizarre as ever in the inexplicably Nintendo-approved NO MORE HEROES III. The latest, and possibly last, in the off-the-fourth-wall action-adventure series, NMHIII is funny and exciting, with off-brand lightsabers and exploding technicolour pixels galore. That said, it's so bizarre - there's a giant pink puff monster that shouts "Adrian!", Rocky-style - that it may not be for all tastes. Boisonberry!

IT TAKES TWO to sabotage a teammate, a philosophy this game takes to heart. A full-blooded co-op adventure game with a humourous bent, its best laughs come not from the painfully leaden script, but from the ability to spoil your partner's progress at any turn. Even though it means your own progress is halted, there's nothing funnier than pulling a literal rug out from under your teammate (you play as feuding spouses) and watching them plummet, Looney Tunes-style, to the ground. And then doing it again after you swear this time you'll be nice. There were quite a few contenders, but It Takes Two is the funniest game of the year.

CANCON AWARDS 2021

I normally reserve this space for overlooked Canuck titles, but it so happens that a lot of 2021's best productions are Canadian or Canadian-adjacent. Much of the Rutherford Falls and Reservations Dogs casts were drawn from First Nations across Canada, while Y: The Last Man was filmed in Toronto and Guardians of the Galaxy developed by Eidos Montréal. 

That leaves only Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, the recent HD re-release of the beloved series, to celebrate as this year's recipient of the Four Winds Seven Seas CanCon Maple Award. As it happens, I've written about Mass Effect on this blog before, albeit a decade(!!) ago. Back then, I called it the greatest Canadian video game of all time. Revisiting it now, so many years (and one very controversial finale) later, I stand by that assessment. 

Time has done little to dull Mass Effect's complex, layered "consequence" system, which tracks player decisions big and small in order to dictate the turns of its three-game narrative. Yes, the main story beats remain the same across all playthroughs, but what's fascinating is how each Commander Shepard's experience is uniquely tailored to the choices you, the player, make. Mass Effect 3 (which had yet to release when I wrote my original ode to the series) remembers important details, like who you fell in love with in Mass Effect 1, but it also remembers that one time you insulted that one journalist in Mass Effect 2. That's something no other video game series has ever accomplished, before or since. I'm Four Winds Seven Seas, and this is my favourite video game on the Canada.